At 11:09 10-01-2012, Bob Hinden wrote:
>Personally, I think it's better to drop the affiliations from the
>first page, than to limit the number of authors to five (when there
>really are more than 5 authors). This could at a minimum be a
>solution to the cases where there are more than 5 legitimate
>authors, or even better remove the affiliation from all future RFCs.
Having the name of the author(s) on the first page is good
advertising as it is placed prominently. It is also good advertising
to have the company name mentioned there as it keeps the company
happy and that helps to cover the expenses of doing the work. The
affiliation is also a way to say that the company supports the
proposal. It is IETF practice to turn a blind eye to the name
dropping as it would not be politically correct to point out such
trivial details.
From a different angle, having the affiliation is helpful as it can
be used to determine whether there is conflict of interest. I can
look at the first page and tell which person I can pick to avoid
conflict of interest (some people on this list are aware of the
context; it's not negative).
One way to limit the number of authors is to ask them to provide
pointers to demonstrate that number of reviewers is at least five
times the number of authors. This could be viewed as social
engineering (see ASBO etc.).
At 12:07 10-01-2012, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>We know that email addresses are not for ever, but should there be
>a default policy requiring a valid address at the date of publication?
No, if you do not get the AUTH48 from the author's email address, you
do not allocate a RFC number. :-)
At 12:14 10-01-2012, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>Good point, and it is not just email. Should the policy be that the
>stated affiliation be valid at the time of publication, regardless
>of what the affiliation was during the document development?
Affiliation is an editorial decision. If a policy is required for
every possible case, I suggest changing RSE to RSN (RFC Series Nanny). :-)
Regards,
-sm